… Chief Network Officer Benoit Hanssen said while the launch of its wideband 4G network last week will continue to thrill data lovers, this 3G wideband technology innovation was one his team has introduced for the voice fans. “This feature will thrill those who love a chat. The sound is so clear it feels like you are standing next to the person you are calling even if you are thousands of kilometres apart.”

Hanssen says while mobile handsets have advanced considerably since they were introduced in Australia in 1987, voice technology has remained largely unchanged. “In addition to voice clarity, suppression technology significantly reduces any background noise between compatible devices making conversations on-the-go more effective,” said Hanssen. “So if you’re at a sporting match, on a train or in a crowd – you don’t have to speak loudly to make yourself heard by the caller,”

“Landlines are on the way out; they’re expensive and don’t suit the 21st century lifestyle. Features like HD voice will just further enhance the dominance of smartphone by making phone conversations sound more natural, making it easier for two callers to communicate clearly with the other.”

… HD Voice is made possible using state of the art technology known as Wideband Adaptive Multi-Rate coding (WB-AMR). The wider dynamic range means over twice the range of voice frequencies are transmitted allowing customers to hear the full range of a person’s voice and makes it much clearer to distinguish between similar sounds like ‘S’ and ‘F’.

Of course, Vodafone and Telstra aren’t the only major telcos in Australia — there’s also Optus. We can’t find a record of the SingTel subsidiary having launched HD voice in Australia, meaning it is possible that the big V has stolen a march on its upscale competitor on this one. Could it be that Vodafone is finally doing something better than Optus? Shock! Sounds like it’s time for Optus to pull its socks up. After all, call quality does count.

But rather to put this simply, unless you are attempting to send high (or at least higher) quality audio as audio over the phone lines this will make zero difference to the actual voice quality of a normal call.

And yes, the difference is *extremely* noticeable. It actually sounds very strange at first – (almost scratchy) – but your ear eventually adjusts, and it’s beautiful quality. Most likely, we are so used to the shit quality of standard codecs, that our brains filter it for us, and it takes time to adjust.

Definitely a big improvement in quality over standard voice. Finally something that is better on the Vodafone network.

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Written by Delimiter Publisher Renai LeMay, The Frustrated State is the first in-depth book examining of how Australia’s political sector is systematically mismanaging technological change and crushing hopes that our nation will ever take its rightful place globally as a digital powerhouse and home of innovation.

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